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From: glenn@welch.jhu.edu (Glenn M. Mason)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: DRDOS config file
Message-ID: <1991Jun23.234139.22969@welch.jhu.edu>
Date: 23 Jun 91 23:41:39 GMT
References: <1991Jun21.025027.12059@novell.com> <1991Jun21.215316.25312@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <1991Jun21.174201.1993@news.cs.indiana.edu>
Reply-To: glenn@welchlab.welch.jhu.edu (Glenn M. Mason)
Organization: Welch Medical Library, Baltimore
Lines: 42

In article <1991Jun21.174201.1993@news.cs.indiana.edu> bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) writes:
>rschmidt@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (roy schmidt) <1991Jun21.215316.25312@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> :
>| An endless loop is *not* recursion.  *This* is recursion:
>
>Unfortunately, "recursion" is one of those technical words whose exact
>meaning varies with the technique.  For computer scientists, an endless
>loop indeed is not recursion.  Recursion involves the notion of referring
>to oneself, typically through a subroutine call (viz. the main() example).
>However, to a mathematician recursion has a more general meaning, more
>closely tied to its root word -- which is "recur".  For the computer
>scientist it is useful to distinguish between "recursion" and "iteration",
>but in a mathematical sense these are merely two styles of the same
>fundamental behavior.
>
>Here is the xWebster definition, from iuvax.cs.indiana.edu:
>
>- re-cur-sion 
>- ri-'ker-zhen\ n
>- [LL recursion-, recursio, fr. recursus, pp. of recurrere]
>- (1616)
>- 1: RETURN
>- 2: the determination of a succession of elements (as numbers or functions)
>-      by operation on one or more preceding elements according to
>-      a rule or formula involving a finite number of steps 
>
>Comment: endlessness is not fundamental to recursion, whether you're a
>mathematician or a computer scientist.  It's just the property that
>makes it pointless to wait for the final answer to appear... 
>
>Mathematics:
>	If you don't agree with this article, then
>		go to the beginning and reread it all.
>
>Computer Science:
>	( while	(disagrees reader this-article)
>		(read-all-of this-article) )


Geeeeeeeeez! I think this is getting a little out of hand guys! I retract
my original followup posting.

;^)